YOUR CART

“Mission complete. Ready for evac,” said agent Fish, his voice heavy with fatigue.It had been one of the long ones. A four week undercover assignment on a secret facility way out in the middle of Earth’s biggest ocean digging up intelligence on its crew, the organisation in charge and its suspicious research projects. The specialist work was the hard part – masquerading as an engineer on the rig in order to copy schematics of the abundant mechanical contraptions used for whatever master plan the furtive directors behind this enterprise were cooking up. Fish was normally a poor choice for such missions, his distinctive appearance being far more difficult to conceal than that of FutureShock’s Class Four cyborgs who could change not only their appearance but their entire bodies to fit any description, to fool all but the most cutting edge identification systems. Nevertheless, they’d picked Fish and put him through major, though reversible, cosmetic surgery; skin grafts, facial modification, and the tacking on of all manner of what he could only describe as “bells and whistles” for his role in the assignment. The primary reason for his designation, however, was not his shrewdness or his coolness under pressure, despite those being key to the role. No, Fish was stationed on this godsforsaken laboratory rig manned by an all new strain of deluded superfascist because he was to carry out orders upon completion of the tedious weeks of espionage to oversee the complete annihilation of the premises and the neutralization of its entire staff. This was, of course, Fish’s speciality.

Mission objectives aside, the grudge he felt toward these self proclaimed ‘Freedom Farmers’ would have been enough for him to flatten the entire rig on principle alone. Orders from FutureShock were one thing; being bossed around by a ridiculous, egocentric foreman whose mouldering brain was hopped up on the current “enhancement” amphetamine of the hour was really quite another. It had put Fish in an awful mood. He’d kept his cool though. That was more than could be said for his partner. Takagi had killed forty members of the crew with complete disregard for orders, almost blowing both his and Fish’s cover. Explosive tempers were abundant, however, and in the amphetamine laced atmosphere aboard the technoresearch vessel casualties to mindless violence would have to have been expected. Infiltration had not been suspected by the mysterious first echelon. As far as they were concerned some of their goons were simply killing each other for fun. As it turned out the Freedom Farmers had been working on creating some kind of artificial shoggoth. That was how the FutureShock agents thought of it at least, although the schematics of the project indicated many fundamental differences from the real thing. The Freedom Farmers had their own ridiculous names for it. The radiation-based nexus that had stood as their prototype when the FutureShock agents demolished the facility, although extremely basic in terms of what it was, had already advanced itself far beyond the understanding of its creators. They didn’t care. A lot of the natural self-preservation failsafes of their human minds had been degraded long ago by the drug cocktails pumped into them daily by their superiors. The inhabitants of Rig 6X7 were just so many worker bees in a hive – or participating, soulless architects of the world’s demise, if one chose to look at it another way.“Woolgathering?” asked Takagi, surfacing beside Fish. The weeks in the psychologically oppressive atmosphere hadn’t seemed to affect him at all.I suppose all those murders would have relieved a bit of tension, thought Fish. He said nothing. “Tell you what,” said Takagi, “We’ve got some leave coming, no doubt. I’ll take you to a place I found in Rio called The Saint’s Hammock. We can get lazy. It’s where all the big names go to clear their heads, put on weight and find themselves.”“Doesn’t really sound like me.” “How about a hike over Tibet? They’re letting folks in now, a select few tourists. That’s world class culture at it’s finest, my friend.”Fish said nothing. All he wanted now was to get on an aircraft, jet back to Pasifika city on afterburner, sit through whatever rehabilitation was waiting for them, climb into a cab and go home. The thought of getting back into his own body and face made a smile tug at one corner of his lips. Misinterpreting the smile, Takagi pressed on. “Malibu? Don’t even pretend like you don’t like the sea, you’re a goddamn fish for chrissake.”“This is about all the ocean I need right here,” said Fish, indicating the broad expanse all around them. Occasional chunks of rubble floated up from the wreckage below, the enormous facility still burning with chemical fire down at the ocean floor. The Freedom Farmer’s project had been a spectacular failure.The evacuation vessel was nowhere in sight. There was a chance the pilot had other errands in this territory or was flying more carefully than was strictly necessary but Fish had hoped it would have been here by now.“Can you see our ride?” asked Fish, aware that Takagi’s personal sensors included radar, sonar, full spectrum X-Ray and a multitude of illegally hacked links into various satellite networks. “I haven’t been looking. Ah, there he is,” said Takagi. He offered no further information as to the direction or distance of their exfiltration vehicle, as if it were obvious.He’s enjoying the swim. Thought Fish bitterly. While Fish tread water, considering the lives he had just taken, the ramifications of the project he had helped thwart, the potentially devastating information he had extracted from it and even the financial cost of what had only taken a few kilos of tailored explosive and some basic training to destroy…. Takagi was enjoying a swim? It didn’t seem appropriate.“Sometimes you get on my nerves,” said Fish. Takagi stopped swimming around. He focused on the normally implacable Fish, surprised. “Go on,” he offered after a silence. “That’s it. Sometimes you get on my nerves.” “What the hell? Did I leave the milk out again? What do you mean?” Fish glimpsed the speeding heliojet just now cresting the horizon, racing toward them. Takagi was about to work himself up into one of his crazy moods. The stupid mission must have affected him after all. Shouldn’t have said anything.As the Class Four cyborg was about to launch into whatever tirade he felt appropriate for the moment, a huge tremor erupted beneath them. It did nothing more to the surface than cause a few ripples and dislodge some floating debris from the twisted metal hell below but it was enough to give Takagi pause in his speech. The tremor could have been caused by many things, most likely a further collapse of the devastated building. It seemed, however, full of malign promise.“Should we get the hell out of here,” said Takagi. It wasn’t a question.They swam, quickly, in the direction of the still distant heliojet. Fish missed the webbing on his fingers that had served him all his life. His gills remained, concealed by minor surgery, and he swam with his head beneath the surface.Their rate of travel, while swift, was not enough to spare the two agents for what was coming. The explosions that had folded Rig 6X7 in on itself had apparently not been enough to destroy the artificial monstrosity inside – only its containment equipment. Fish cursed himself for his assumption that an increased charge in its proximity would blow the thing apart.The sucking at their legs was like something out of a nightmare. They continued to swim but the vacuum increased causing their strongest efforts to simply hold them in place before strengthening its pull and drawing them back and down, minutely at first then with irresistible force. The two soon found themselves caught in the turbulence of a massive whirlpool as though some god hand had pulled an immense plug on the floor of the ocean directly below them. Floating debris had been caught in the pull too and swirled around hazardously. Fish was surprised to see genuine wooden furniture among it – the lavishness suggesting that perhaps the masterminds of Rig 6X7’s Freedom Farmers had been residents aboard their own project facility the whole time.Such considerations didn’t stay in mind for long, however. Looking down, Fish saw the dark hole which stood at the centre of the gyre, certain of what lay cloaked by those marine shadows – the lunatic yield of Research Rig 6X7.Takagi found himself both exhilarated and terrified by the swirling downward maelstrom on which he rode. Accepting that there was no escape but confident that he would survive – somehow – Takagi’s initial terror faded and he began to enjoy his decent for what it was; a fun ride.“Takagi! Can you hear me?” shouted Fish across the churning chasm between them. Whilst trying to escape the pull they had swum close together but now they had been wrenched into different chaotic orbits in the surge and he could now see Takagi flailing on the opposite side of the chasm from him. “Of course!” Came the reply. Fish was appreciative of the technology that allowed for verbal communication in even a roaring cacophony such as this. Fish’s own body, riddled with incredible feats of biological science, had remarkable abilities. The elaborate cells that made up his sensory organs were tailored exquisitely for optimal performance. He was capable of hearing small sounds over great distances and even had a fair degree of control over what he could block out or pick up. This spared him being deafened by the hubbub of a noisy environment whilst also providing him the means to detect miniscule vibrations over large distances. Comparably, audio sensors installed in Takagi’s ear canals were capable of picking up any airborne vibration and translating it into sound. Massive noises, like the primal roar of an oceanic whirlpool could be differentiated and isolated from unrelated sounds giving the effect of having several levels of hearing – one for each noise within range of those hypersensitive sensors. If Fish spoke plainly, the chances were good that Takagi’s latest model ear augments would detect the words as plainly as though he were chatting beside him in a quiet meadow. Fish yelled anyway – the occasion seemed fitting.“Swim down! Swim down and away from the vortex in an arc! The centrifuge should be weaker the lower you go until you can break away!”Takagi responded with a whooping cheer. Fish had heard him make similar sounds while riding rollercoasters. He caught a flash of colour against the surging blue. Takagi appeared to be balanced on a block of wood. Realisation came.The bastard is surfing? Fish didn’t know what to say. Technically it wouldn’t be a major disaster if Takagi died – His entire consciousness was backed up somewhere in the databanks of FutureShock headquarters and, most likely, illegally at his home too. If Takagi were to die, technicians at FutureShock would simply load the backed up data into one of Takagi’s various spare bodies and he could carry on from there. The loss would only be the Takagi that had lived since last back up. In this case it was only the few weeks on mission, as it was standard practice for the cyborg to do it before assignments. Although Takagi himself had never before had to use one of these backups he and Fish had both witnessed one of their colleagues ‘reboot’. For Fish it had been a sad affair. No matter what way you looked at it, a part of their friend had died and would never come back. The fact that he was only what Takagi called “four days dead” was not the point. What effect did the loss of four days have on the soul? Perhaps that soul was gone, and here was another. A copy yes, but a different essence altogether. It made Fish brood, as he was prone to do.Takagi had seemed to have slipped down toward the centre of the vortex from where Fish had last glimpsed him, although he could not think of that now. If Takagi wouldn’t save himself Fish wasn’t about to do it for him. He dived beneath the water, kicking with large feet and pulling the water past him with his hands. He did not get far before the vortex drew him back to the steeply slanted ocean surface once more.“I can’t get out!” Fish yelled across to Takagi, although the cyborg was nowhere in sight.“Why would you want to?!” He heard back. Why would I want to? To live, asshole. Fish bit his lip. Perhaps he would save Takagi after all– if only to teach him a few manners.Struggling was useless. Fish could no more control his descent than he could control his comrade’s reckless attitude towards imminent death. Far from accepting his fate, Fish relaxed his body, preparing to seize the first, even the most tenuous, chance at survival that should present itself. Prime objective: Avoiding the damned manmade wormhole. Secondary objective: Stern words with Takagi.The maw, as Fish was beginning to think of it, drew closer as is the intrinsic nature of maws. A scum of flotsam had gathered around the base of the Freedom Farmer’s obscenity of science without having been sucked in. Perhaps some force in the strange nucleus was repelling solids and only drawing liquid into itself? Fish realized there was no way to tell if the vortex was in fact consuming the water or simply pulling it into this violent shape. Maybe this was all just a harmless, though dramatic, phenomenon and he and Takagi would simply pass through the bizarre thing and swim away to safety. Or maybe it was, to some extent, alive and had a grudge against the two beings who had slain its creators while it was still being nurtured into existence. Thoughts as to the nature of the weird, nameless entity ran through Fish’s mind even as it drew him through the cumbersome swirling ring of furniture, bodies and miscellaneous debris into its core.From the corner of his eye Fish could see Takagi being drawn in now, too, an odd grin halfway between a rictus and smirk on his strained face. Fish found a small comfort in being spared the word ‘Cowabunga’ as being the epilogue to his life.A chord like some holy refrain sounded in Fish’s ears. Tangled violet light exploded in his eyes and a sensation of weightlessness stole through his every nerve. A curious, indescribable scent-flavour erupted on his tongue and in his nose, giving an impression of being taken over that was far more profound than the mere overwhelming of his vision. These sensations lasted only an instant before Fish’s brain shut itself down, retreating to the panic room of unconsciousness. ​

“Control, something’s not right here. Target has vanished. Repeat, my target has vanished, over,” said the heliojet pilot. “Is there sign of combat?,” came the instant reply. Thank god Moore had taken the call and not some weekend operator. The pilot relaxed a little as he shot toward the massive chasm of water churning at the sight of his intended pickup.“No visible combat but one hell of a whirlpool. Our boys must have been sucked down into that thing. It’s stretching for miles, over.”A brief pause on the line then, “Go to the rendezvous. If they’re there, pick ‘em up, if you’re fired on or feel any kind of pull get the hell out of there.” Moore sounded troubled. So was the pilot.“Orders confirmed. Out.” Said the pilot. Ops would right now be performing a satellite scan of the rendezvous point to see this whirlpool. He was running a one man exfiltration flight, getting agents Fish and Takagi out in first class style. He had worked with the pair before, knew their reputation as fearless action junkies but something told him that if both their beacons were out then something seriously wronghad gone down. Either they turned themselves off deliberately to avoid the attentions of some hostile force in the area or else they had gone out because they had somehow been killed. The pilot didn’t like either possibility. He pressed his afterburners slightly harder to hurry to the rendezvous.For security reasons, the FutureShock agents hadn’t relayed their findings of Rig 6X7 through any medium to base. They would courier their reports themselves to avoid any interception of information. Operations was, therefore, unaware of the exact magnitude of the potential threat that had now been unleashed in the Pacific ocean.Something was gnawing at Fish’s side. A giant alien tooth was sawing its way to the nutrient rich meat of his liver and he was paralyzed, powerless in the clutches of such a vast and terrible predator.The pain and panic awoke him. Dazed and disoriented he quickly assessed his situation. Alive. Submerged. Under attack.Kicking to escape the thing biting his side Fish soon realised he was trapped. Wedged between two large, grinding teeth.No, not teeth. Rocks. He was in the shallows near a shore with a sharp rock digging into his side. Embarrassed, Fish disentangled himself from the jutting stone and checked for damage. The wound was not deep but long and ragged. Blood flowed into the water. Fish had no idea how long he had been out but the bleeding alarmed him. He saw no sign of his companion. As he swam he tried enhancing his kicks with his booster implant. It did not respond. Probably fried by theshoggoth larva, he thought. Assuming predators and parasites would be drawn to the blood leaking from his side, Fish moved toward the shore. Where am I? Said a voice in his head. Fish stopped paddling, floating still in the water. Apparently he was picking up the thoughts of someone else. Without meaning to, he looked down at his body, raised his hands to look at them. The sensation of his body moving unbidden was massively disconcerting. He tried to remain calm.What the hell? This isn’t me… The thought came again. The tone was familiar. Takagi’s voice, here in his head.“Takagi, where are you?” said Fish. Speaking underwater was a trick he had learned long ago, as a child. “Right here,” came the garbled words from his own mouth.Oh no…Using whatever arcane processes at its disposal the vortex had drawn the two agents into itself somehow fusing their organic elements and disgorging them as one. None of their cybernetic components had survived the transformation and only the living cells of the two FutureShock agents had been merged. This resulted in Fish’s organic body hosting both his own and Takagi’s minds as the latter had only a cursory number of pseudo-organic brain cells to his person, the rest of his self being augment.It could be worse, said Fish in his head, quickly adapting to non-verbal communication. Imagine the freak we’d have made if you kept any of your original body.Blech, said Takagi, ambiguously. Perhaps he meant the thought of an eight limbed, two headed, shambling double humanoid or maybe he simply referred to the idea of living biologically. Hunger pains shot through the shared body into both minds as they resumed the swim, now under Fish’s agreed control, toward shore. An uneasiness had gripped Fish. His usual unflappable confidence was beginning to give way to a growing frustration at his predicament. He had been looking forward to getting home and spending some time alone. He had had enough company for a while but now this mouthy bastard was in his head and he was stuck in the middle of nowhere without so much as a carrier pigeon to send word for help. Come on, Lungfish, said Takagi in Fish’s mind as he broke the surface and clambered up a sandy slope. Lets get some food into this thing – I had no idea you lived like this, all… Biodegradable. Fish felt a mental shiver from his colleague.Don’t even start with me, Fish replied. If you don’t like this “thing,” then you can damned well leave - see how far you get. I’m going to find somewhere to assess the situation, recuperate and then locate a means to contact ops. You’re welcome to come along if you want to but you’d best remember whose body you’re snatching.The two ex-cyborgs found themselves on a beautiful, secluded beach that stretched off as far as the eye could see along both shores. Toward the western shore Fish could see what appeared to be wisps of smoke rising above the ragged tree line of the nearby palm forest which appeared to stretch over the whole island.As he began the trek toward what he hoped was civilisation, Fish began to brood. He was starving, frustrated and disoriented after the blow to his senses he’d received in the vortex. A cool, tropical breeze alerted him to the dismaying fact that along with his booster and gear he had lost his clothes too. Rather than follow the indirect path of the winding beach, Fish entered the forest of palms and strode in a direct line to where he had seen the smoke. Although low hills and undulant terrain marred this route Fish found the damp ground here easier than walking on sand.You know you’re naked? Said Takagi, apparently not satisfied to enjoy the tropical scenery in silence.Yes. It occurred to Fish that this mind-speak that allowed him to communicate with his partner was specific only to communicative thoughts. The bulk thought fluttering in Fish’s mind as he reflected on the current situation were imperceptible to Takagi, as were his guest’s to him. That was one small solace that gave Fish some cheer. He had no real idea why he was so moody today. He put it down to the effects of the Rig 6X7 environment having taken more of a psychological toll on him than he’d originally gauged. Life in the tropical region of Phoenix Archipelago, known locally as Shikoshiko, was idyllic. Perimundo, a skilled fisherboy, waded to shore dragging his catch in the net by one hand, carrying his fishing rod in the other. Proud of himself for being the day’s first fisherman to fill his net, Perimundo grinned at the villagers who stood on the beach applauding him. Smoking fires to cook with had already been lit on the beach. In a quiet tribal village such as this the gentle people of Shikoshiko were strangers to many blights of the world and their simple lifestyle filled their lives with contentment. Here there was no place for violence, cruelty or mayhem. No other villages vied for territory, engaging in battles, rare or regular. The peaceful Shikoshikoi were in tune with nature and it was this harmony that was their greatest achievement. Most, like Perimundo, were true natives. They were people from all over the globe who had shed the memories and past lives to live in this half virtual, half corporeal paradise. They were willing savages who choose to shun and escape the technological worldrace of the modern age. A few were only vacationers, their memories and lives on hold in the datavaults of some holiday agency while they enjoyed the simple island lifestyle for a predetermined period. This opttion was for escapists who simply couldn’t afford a lifetime pass, but on Phoenix Archipelago they were indistinguishable from the permanent residents. Today, simply by virtue of filling his catch net faster than the other fishermen, Perimundo had earned his manhood. No test of fighting ability or token feat of strength determined the status of the villagers. It was accomplished merely by showing undeniable mastery of one’s profession. Perimundo’s mother hugged him, and the youngster was filled with pride. Having filled his catch, Perimundo did not wish to simply fall asleep in his hammock until the meal time like the older fishermen did. He wanted to be useful, to make his village proud. Knowing there was always work to be done, Perimundo set to the task of picking broad leaves from the forest which would be needed to wrap the fish in preparation for the evening meal. The mud and straw huts of his people jutted out from the sand into the sea. Those of the rustic hovels that were not built over land sat balanced on sturdy poles above the clear, teeming waters beneath. A network of modest yet well-made boardwalks allowed access between these small buildings, although the people of Shikoshiko also engaged in a lot of swimming. In his family’s hut Perimundo set down his fishing gear and picked up a woven basket. Still smiling, he set forth into the forest. Perhaps he would find his friend Leilei there and tell her of his ascent into adulthood.There were many fish in the sea, numbers increasing year by year, although the vegetation on the peninsula had been faltering since last winter. Bugs and other less obvious blights had afflicted some of the food plants, having an impact on the Shikoshikoi diet. Perimundo had to go further than he was familiar with in order to fill his basket, which was presently only a third full. I’m a man now, he thought, proudly. No need to be afraid of the forest. He strode into the increasingly thick foliage, light filtering down from the canopy above in a pleasing crisscross pattern. Perimundo walked for some time in search of edible leaves encountering not even the sounds of the other foraging villagers. Perimundo came across a small depression between two hillocks in which there was a dense copse of the good eating bushes. What a find!He made a mental note of how he had got here and resolved to divulge the way as soon as he got back. He quickly filled his basket. There was enough edible vegetation here for several weeks and once he had obtained all the leaves he could carry the thick copse of foliage still looked as though he had taken nothing. Satisfied with himself, Perimundo turned to go. As he did so a large shape crested the hill to his left casting it’s shadow over him. The effect was so imposing it caused the boy to stop dead in his tracks. Slowly lifting his eyes he beheld upon the hill a giant, hideous pallid gargoyle, its wide set eyes focusing on him with ferocious malevolence. A guttural rumble erupted from the creature’s lips, a sound of horror so startling it seemed to stop Perimundo’s heart in his chest.Blinking, remembering to breathe, Perimundo snapped out of the paralysing fear cast on him by the ogre and desperately ran for his life.What the hell was his problem? Takagi wondered. Don’t know.I suppose you aren’t exactly easy on the eyes. Said Takagi. And the full frontal couldn’t have helped... Poor kid.Annoyed, Fish restrained his reply. We have to get to where he came from. Whereever he’s from there’ll be a net uplink and then it’s just a matter of waiting. We’ll be home free. No more of this. His stomach felt like it was burning a hole through him. He was about to pass out from hunger.Wake me up when we get there. Home I mean, said Takagi.Fine with me.The pale demon crashed out from the shade of the forest canopy, into the sandy flats which surrounded the village. It stopped short when it saw the men with their crude, ornamental spears pointed at it. The villagers surrounded the demon in a semicircle, spearmen at the fore, unarmed adults behind them and children at the back, straining on the tips of their toes to see. Everyone gathered quickly to see the creature from the forest. The demon spoke briefly in an infernal tongue, no doubt a curse on the village for protecting the boy it wanted to eat.“Stay back!” said a spearman. The demon took a step toward him, spoke again in its horrible rumble. It pointed to its cracked lips. “You cannot have Perimundo!” shouted the boy’s mother, to several accompanying shouts.The watery, bloodshot eyes of the demon sought the origin of the voice. Perhaps it wanted a woman as well as a child to eat. Uneasy in the standoff but afraid to attack the demon directly, the villagers mainly stared. The creature looked weakened somehow – perhaps it had not had a child to eat for some time. “Back to the forest with you!” cried a brave fisherman, although it looked as though this demon had originally come from the sea.At that moment, perhaps alarmed by the man’s shout, the demon collapsed. First to its knees, as though an unseen assassin had impaled it in the back. After a moment kneeling before the village of Shikoshiko, the demon fell flat upon its front. Perimundo thought he glimpsed a pained expression on the thing’s face, although no attacker stood behind the beast – whatever had brought it down remained a mystery. The demon did not move.In the unexpected anticlimax of the situation, the townsfolk began to mill around. They had seen the creature, yes, but it had done nothing, merely collapsed. Perhaps it was sick? When it was clear the beast was not faking its blackout people began to break away from the crowd, losing interest in the creature. It posed no harm now. They returned to their work.A spearman, a brave young man, approached the demon in a slow sidle. He bent low to try to see its face but could not. He was careful to keep his spear in front of him. He slowly circled the beast before standing in front of it’s head once more. “Poke it!” yelled Perimundo. The spearman, by trade a weaver, eased his spear toward the thing, to poke the demon on the back. As the flint spearpoint neared the thing’s head a hand flashed up from the sandy ground and seized the spear. A jerk of the thing’s arm quickly snapped off the spearhead, and the boy dropped his stick with a yelp and fled to safety behind the other, armed men.

Leaping to Fish’s feet, Takagi took in his surroundings. This process took a few disorienting seconds as he adjusted to Fish’s very different sensory systems. A wash of nostalgia hit him as it reminded him of his days as a youth when he still had his original body. He had been dozing as Fish marched toward the town and on waking had found himself lying face down on the ground in front of some angry men in costumes. The body he inhabited was starving, Fish’s enhanced metabolism unfueled and raging. It seemed that Fish had passed out from hunger as there were no detectable wounds in his body, just a mild itch at his side which had recently been a much larger gash from a rock. An extremely nervous man with a spear lunged at Takagi. The FutureShock agent caught the spear as it was thrust, marveled briefly at the responsiveness of Fish’s limb, and wrenched the weapon from the grip of the small, terrified man. The other men, shouting in a language Takagi could not even describe, attacked him together. A crouching sweep of his commandeered weapon knocked away the spearheads that were on target, then he was leaping, kicking, swinging Fish’s powerful arms and the spear in the antique combat patterns that he associated with an organic body. Careful not to impale anyone with the spearhead or draw fatal amounts of blood, Takagi nevertheless made sure to deliver satisfying blows to his attackers that would see they couldn’t or wouldn’t want to get back up until he was quite finished. He felt like someone taking a new vehicle for a test drive, only it wasn’t new, it was second hand, and it wasn’t a car – it was Fish’s hybrid body. When twelve injured men lay groaning or simply breathing on the sandy ground Takagi realized that he was about to pass out himself. He was not entirely immune to the mechanisms of Fish’s body – dehydration and hunger were once again an apsect of his life after many decades of blissful circumvention. Quickly vaulting a low wall that served as a perimeter for the land facing side of the village Takagi almost stopped short. These people weren’t in costumes – they were genuine tribesfolk! Grass huts and sturdy wooden gangplanks formed a peaceful little habitat, over half of which was erected above the shallow, clear waters of the bay. Further out were tall poles on the water upon which fishermen sat and in small jetties were tethered canoes carved from the incredibly tough palmwood abundant in the surrounding forest. The most striking feature of all in the otherwise breathtakingly picturesque village was an enormous totem-like construction standing on the sand a little way off from the cluster of huts and gangways. This monolith stood twenty feet high and was covered in bamboo scaffolding as if its construction was ongoing. Its purpose could not even be guessed at and its style, entirely more complex than the mud, stick and straw huts that formed the village proper, suggested it was of some spiritual significance.Takagi was agape that he had wound up here. They must have drifted for ages in the ocean to wind up in this place. He had heard of it before, a world of a few islands that doubled as a protected nature reserve and a social escape from the rest of the world. He’d heard that elaborate holidays were taken here by denizens of the big civilisations. A slew of companies offered combination safari, naturalist getaways, most of them owning their own island. Ways for the wealthy to refamiliarise themselves with nature from behind the safety screen of immunisation, and AI controlled tranquility. He knew of tours to semi-developed towns on the outskirts of the big cities. Most tourists from those hypertechnological nexuses wouldn’t be able to tell a township built from brick and mortar from a puritan corporate conservation area anyway. So long as it was different to the pampered city luxury they took for granted at home it was exotic enough for them. But this place… Takagi hadn’t even imagined such a community could exist in this age, even if it was a profiteering gimmick. No electricity for a start.Wooden sea vessels. The absence of metal. For a moment he couldn’t believe his eyes but he had no time to dwell. Food was what he needed, and it occurred to him what it must be like living in such a place. To be constantly hungry, thirsty or tired, having to work simply to satisfy these base urges – why would anyone live like this?He leaped onto a gangplank and began his search for food. Not bothering with formalities, he planned on simply taking whatever food and water he needed to feed himself and in return he would get the hell out of this village and its peoples’ lives. It didn’t feel good but there wasn’t enough time to ask nicely of a bunch of foreigners who spoke an unintelligible language after just laying flat their menfolk for a heavy meal and a cup of tea.The first hut bore nothing but a pair of bamboo mats and some miscellaneous objects that were not edible. So did the next. He moved fast, not knowing when Fish’s high performance meatware would give out and collapse. Villagers on the gangplanks that saw him ran from him, yelling, presumably for help. Those in their huts when he burst in merely stared, terrified. Help is sore, people. Just stay out of my way and everything will be okay.Hut after hut turned up no food. By now he was standing above water. Small marine life of all shapes and colours swam in the warm shallows. He glanced briefly toward the towering structure standing aside from the community and, judging by its bizarre appearance, decided that food storage was probably the last thing it would be used for.Frustrated, Takagi stormed around some more. At least this body has got its strong points, he thought, relishing the heavy, flat sounds of his footfalls on the rough hewn planks. On the beach lay several nets full of fish. Around them were people working, filleting, gutting and otherwise assaulting their piscine array.Lovely. I get sucked into a vortex from hell, my mind fused into someone else’s body, I drift for days to some backward continent and all they have on offer is sushi. Why is this typical? Rather than enjoy the humour of his plight, Takagi was annoyed that Fish wasn’t awake to catch his quip. He stormed onto the beach, toward the fishmongers who fled upon seeing him. Perhaps they thought he was a some sea devil come to avenge his kinsfish lying, air-drowned on the sand. Takagi sat cross legged on the sand, before the piles of assorted marine creatures. The catch stank something dreadful and looked repulsively like a vision right out of a nightmare he’d had whilst in cryosleep after he’d witnessed a massacre in one of the slums of Pasifika city’s lower plates. He closed his eyes and reached out, intending to cram whatever he picked up into his mouth, chew minimally, and justget it down.“Sorry to do this to you, pal,” said Takagi, aloud, to his unconscious partner. This is about as gross as I can handle. Gagging, he gulped down mouthful after mouthful of miscellaneous grunion.

The demon sat devouring the village’s catch, stuffing gobbets of guts and offal into its mouth along with choicer morsels as though it were incapable of taste and only required food as fuel. The fish of this region were considered a delicacy, even by the standards of the natives, those who ate it as their staple. The demon consuming the entire catch seemed not only bizarre but overly indulgent, as though its unholy appetite could not be entirely satiated by the food of mortals. Nevertheless, the demon sat back in a kind of tilting recline once it had devoured a great deal of the hard won fish as if it was now ready for sleep.Huku, the old man, watched the beast quietly from his vantage aside from the others. The demon had defeated all the strongest men in the village but had not killed a single one. Perhaps it wanted them to live that they might serve it now that it had moved in to their small community. Huku was afraid of the creature but he was also a man of thought and he considered the possible motives of this demon, if that was indeed what it was.Perimundo, by his nature an earnest boy, had come fleeing back to the village screaming about being attacked by the giant creature in the forest. The demon, as he had called it in his terror, had tried to eat him.The thing was hungry, yes, but why hadn’t it killed and devoured the men it had bested? It had as yet displayed no magic other than its amazing fighting strength – perhaps it was that this beast was simply a freak of nature, spurned from some distant village as an abomination, bound to make a life for itself alone in the forests of the archipelago. Or maybe it was some strange, lost member of a race of aquatic fishmen like in the old legends, unable to find its way home. The demon reminded him in many ways of the stories of the Deep Gods.Huku watched the thing attempt to stand up and keel over. It had eaten a great deal, Huku reflected, and hallucination was a fairly common side effect found in certain parts of some types of the local fish. Perhaps the demon’s mind was swimming in uncanny depths right now. If he were of an aggressive temperament Huku might have ordered an attack on the demon while it was in this state but instead he simply watched.The gods must have sent this creature to the village for a purpose.It was just a matter of figuring out what its purpose was.

They poisoned the fish. Damn it, should have seen that coming. Takagi’s world spun. Out of his mind with hunger and exhaustion with no mechanical means of surveying and analysing his food, indeed, eating it without even wanting to look, he had walked right into the cunning ruse of the villagers. Now he felt his host’s body go numb, the tingling sensations crawling all over the skin. He fell backward on the sand, looking up at the pulsating, rotating sky. It seemed to speak to him, urgent words in an indecipherable dialect uttered in tones that belied the endless tranquility of the great empyrean yonder.

A jolt of electricity like the wrath of Zeus slammed through the cyborg’s nervous system, jerking his body forward against his restraints. The straps around his arms, legs and torso slid into their sheaths inside the chair allowing him freedom of movement. For a moment he could not comprehend where he was, the familiar environment of FutureShock’s infirmary too different to the last place he had seen to allow his brain to fathom the transition. Familiarity dawned and Takagi noticed the face above his recumbent medichair. He leaned forward and the chair followed his movement, tilting to a more upright repose.“Welcome home,” said Moore. She waved a hand dismissing the technicians who had been working on restoring the agent to his former self.Takagi looked down, expecting to see the rubbery flesh of agent Fish’s large hands. The synthetic skin on his palms flexed and turned to his mental commands with perfect compatibility. He was back in one of his own bodies, a spare he kept in the FutureShock storage hold. Awareness came of the artificial sensory augmentations that now riddled his anatomy. Takagi immediately felt complete once again. He was delighted that FutureShock staff had been able to separate him from his host. The prospect of spending the rest of his life inside Fish’s head did not bear thinking about.“Thanks,” said Takagi. Apparently he hadn’t died out there in the sticks continent. To be sure he confirmed that he remembered the tedious weeks aboard the miserable Rig 6X7 and all the relevant information about the Freedom Farmers and their work. The memories had some holes where he’d committed them to cognitive hardware, but all in all he seemed to have retained most of the valid data.Somehow he and Fish had been picked up by FutureShock and brought home safely. He wanted to know how.“You’re welcome.”“Where’s John Dory?” he asked. “Fish is rehabilitating. He needed body work rather than just a mental upload and install. He’s in surgery now.”A brief Q and A session ensued in which Moore gave little information on what had transpired since Takagi had eaten the hallucinogenic seafood, mostly focusing on the events at the destroyed rig which had resulted in Takagi and Fish going offline and AWOL. Upon mention of the artificial shoggoth released from Rig 6X7 Moore’s bemused expression turned serious. Immediately she hauled Takagi up, willing to postpone his rehabilitation temporarily in order to ascertain the mission debrief which FutureShock and their current client required in order to establish an acceptable mission outcome.Several tedious hours of consultation and intel disclosure ensued between Takagi, Moore and Rimbaud’s secretary. Takagi was given orders to stay “within contact” upon the meeting’s conclusion. Having regained his inbuilt uplink to the global network he couldn’t imagine how that would not be possible, short of a repeat of his recent ordeal. He left the debrief office and went looking for Fish. He wanted answers to some very important questions, not least of which was what the hell happened after I ate the funky fugu?Fish was in the mess hall, his surgery having given him back his face, his normal skin, his hands and whatever else had been removed to make him able to blend in with the narcotics fanatics on Rig 6X7. His extra cybernetic parts would have been discovered to be missing and replaced too. Takagi wondered how and why Fish’s debrief and rehab had been so much quicker than his own. Fish sat alone eating his way through an enormous tray piled with food. Mostly Takagi couldn’t stand to watch people eat but Fish was an exception. He ate with gusto and an indifference to table manners which Takagi appreciated. Human digestion was, if you thought about it, a repugnant process. The idea of giving it its own etiquette struck him as perverse.“Come on over,” said Fish, not turning around. He slurped a forkful of thick egg noodles. Takagi slid into the booth across from Fish. It was a nice touch for the staff of the FutureShock operations dirigible, known affectionately as the Skywhale, that the main mess hall had a variety of historical influences, including a few table booths in the style of a nineteen fifties american diner. “I have questions,” said Takagi. “I have some answers.” said Fish. He glanced up from his meal for a second, catching Takagi’s eye. The cyborg look exasperated – a rare occurrence for this paragon of confidence.“The village we saw had built a massive totem structure,” Fish began. “I never saw it but apparently it looked especially out of place next to those mud huts and wooden everything. It was huge. Turns out it did stuff, weird stuff at dawn and at dusk. The tribesfolk must have thought it was a connection to a higher plane or something because, although they built it themselves out of driftwood and bits hewn from that palm forest, they had not the least understanding of why they had built it or what, ultimately, it was for. In the twilight it would vibrate and hum and sometimes emit little glowing bits of light. No electronic components mind you – not even metal just bits of dry dreck dug up from the beach and cut from the palms. The technical reason behind the phenomenon was that the thing was situated in a major non-satellite data line between the northern and southern hemispheres, an autobahn for encrypted code. All manner of channels go through that area: macrowave, globonet, radio, you name it. Data would get backed up in the ether there at dawn and dusk because those were the times that the data hub transmitters would reset and there’d be a slight backlog of information straining to get through. The totem acted as a kind of bandwidth expander, like an anti-bottleneck, increasing the flow of the transmissions both ways. The effect on the structure, though, might have been interpreted by the ‘natives’ as divine communication. “Whatever the case, when we arrived we scared the piss out of the poor bastards. They thought we were some kind of demon and that we had come to destroy their village. I hear you had a little rampage after I passed out from hunger.”“Hey-“ began Takagi, defensively.“Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you did. We both would have died if you hadn’t eaten their entire catch. “So anyway this old man, an elder I guess, reckons their gods had sent this demon – us - to destroy their village for making the totem structure. He realises that maybe it was blasphemy to build the thing; maybe it’s not divine communication after all, but infernal. “Alternatively, he reasons, maybe this demon isn’t a demon but an avatar of the gods sent to punish them for building the totem structure. They could probably recognise the Deep One influences in me, despite all that surgery, and their gods would likely have been influenced by the Deep Ones themselves. There’s a kind of clandestine facility of theirs a few miles off the coast of that village. “After you had your little meal and flaked out on the beach this guy gives the order to burn the totem structure before the arbiter of their fate wakes up and kills everyone. He’s seen this demon, holy avatar, whatever, defeat their strongest men, enter every hut looking for something and consume their entire catch – he figures its just going to get worse. Maybe it’ll eat the children, steal the women, flatten the village, that sort of thing.“He reckons that if they destroy the totem then they’ll be spared this fate because it will show their allegiance to the gods, whom they hope will stop terrorizing them.”“It’s a good thing they didn’t just kill us while we slept,” said Takagi.“They must have assumed that because you kicked everyone’s ass before just as they approached that it could just as easily happen again. Burning the totem thing must have seemed like their only hope and far safer, so they set to it immediately.“Meanwhile, the Deep Ones, who are behind the creation of the totem structure by the way, inevitably notice that it’s been set on fire. They send a squad of four agents to take a look at the scene; there’s no way they can get in trouble with the Preservation Union for simply visiting the place. Humans do that all the time. When the Deep Ones turn up, though, the villagers think they are the gods themselves and fall to their knees. It must have looked just like an old movie.”“What did the Deep Ones care about some backward little fishing village?” Asked Takagi.“It turns out they, the Deep Ones, have been manipulating the villagers with chemical messages implanted in the fish which compel the little buggers to build this structure which is not a totem at all – it is a data relay, cleverly fashioned from common, organic materials which provide the Deep Ones with information offshoot from the global data transmission line without disrupting its flow. Global espionage disguised as third world piety. “See, if the Deep Ones had built the thing themselves, or even had it built in the same manner but with electrometallic components then it would have been noticed by the Preservation Union surveillance satellites and been duly thwarted. “Once they deduced what was going on with their data relay, put out the fire and had the situation explained by the village elder who came up with the plan, the Deep Ones explained to the villagers that they must keep the totem and continue adding to it however they feel compelled to do. They saw my unconscious body lying on the beach, and by some incredible stroke of luck one of the agents recognised me. So then they tell the villagers that our coming there was a test of faith. Then they left and hauled my ass back to their outpost with them where they contacted FutureShock and had us picked up.”“That’s damn lucky,” said Takagi. “No kidding,” said Fish. “The rest is history. In exchange for retrieving our miserable hides FutureShock agreed to not disclose information about the Deep One data relay to the Preservation Union or any other third party. Couple of heliojets dropped a serious charge into the vortex at the bottom of the big whirlpool, blew it apart. It had started to wind down by then anyway.”“It feels good to be back in my own skin. I was afraid it was never gonna happen.”Fish said nothing but took another large mouthful from his steaming tray of food.“You know, gorging on all that fish on the beach back there, just cramming it down so your body wouldn’t die there was a sensation like…” He couldn’t find the words. “Satisfaction?” Offered Fish, through a mouthful.“Yeah. Satisfaction. Satisfying the hunger – there’s nothing really like it for me. I recharge from time to time, sure, but if I get low on power I can leech electrons off just about anything. Eating is different. Maybe I’ll start doing it again, you know? Regularly I mean. All that viscera was revolting, make no mistake, but breaking that hunger felt good – I suppose I owe you organics some respect for living like that.”Moore entered the mess hall. Fish waved her over.“Big leave coming up for you two,” said Moore. “Any plans?” She sucked on a milkshake. It hit Fish how much he had missed the sight of Moore in a casual context like this. Business was good but downtime was fantastic.“Nothing specific,” said Fish, vaguely. “I keep thinking about going back to that little corner of the world with the hallucinogenic seafood,” said Takagi. “Feels like I should visit that tribe again, find a way to apologise for stomping on their little village.”“Actually I’m not sure that’s necessary,” said Moore, “I’ve been monitoring their progress since the Deep Ones left and they’re not a gibbering terrified mess, if that’s what you’re worried about. Some of the folks are practicing what look markedly like some of your fighting movements. I’ve kept the uplink open if you want to take a look.” She took out her personal console and tapped a few commands into the touch-screen. A live-feed image appeared on the monitor providing a top-down view of two neat rows of figures on a sandy beach. They all seemed to be practicing a sweeping kata involving kicks, punches and spearwork in addition to quick ducking and sidestepping movements. Their actions were all perfectly synchronized with each other but for a few of the smaller participants, which were most likely young children.“Wow,” said Fish.Takagi laughed. “I guess I gave them the greatest gift of all.”“What’s that?” asked Moore.“I taught those peaceful tribesmen kung-fu.”